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This section is for discussions with other women who have probably been through the same signs/symptoms that you may be experiencing. Please note, we cannot offer medical advice and encourage members to discuss their concerns with their doctors. New members, come on in and introduce yourself!

lors63 wrote:I have had a strong belief for quite some time that there is a correlation between the two, if you had HELLP and have a child with Autism, please email me,I had Pre Ecl and Hellp and both my sons are Autistic, although the second one I didnt have Pre Ecl or Hellp with him. Please email me, I plan to have a study conducted I Hope if I can gather enough info.

Lorraine InmanFlorida

I have been looking for sombody that think the same way as i do. My son war born i 2004. I had HELLP and he is autistic and has ADD. I am sure that there is a correlation between the two. We also have a girl, born 2009, she is healthy and fine, so was i during the pregnacy. Good luck with the study. Cathrine from Norway.

lors63 wrote:I have had a strong belief for quite some time that there is a correlation between the two, if you had HELLP and have a child with Autism, please email me,I had Pre Ecl and Hellp and both my sons are Autistic, although the second one I didnt have Pre Ecl or Hellp with him. Please email me, I plan to have a study conducted I Hope if I can gather enough info.

I did have uncontrolled asthma while pregnant with Alex and semi-controlled asthma with Mason.

Still if you think about it, the risk of having a child with autism is really really low (like 0.005% or 1/166 to 200 births), so even doubling, tripling etc.. still leaves it up to the luck of the draw and random circumstances of genetics in whether it develops or not.

"After adjustment for maternal factors, only 1 autoimmune condition, psoriasis, was significantly associated with ASDs (adjusted odds ratio, 2.7; 95% confidence interval, 1.3-5.8). A greater than 2-fold elevated risk of ASD was observed for maternal asthma and allergy diagnoses recorded during the second trimester of pregnancy..."

Lorraine,
Wishing you luck with your study.
I don't know enough to add anything here... other than I did have HELLP and have a daughter whom is going to be tested for PDD. She shows many symptoms if anything.

I also have a step son whom is autistic and before his mom passed away she told me briefly she had a late onset of PE during his birth.

Having a child that has had the autism word thrown around quite a bit, really the only theory that makes sense to me is the whole gene thing. But then again we are actaully in a study that is tracking autism type behaviors through genes.

We can see how my son gets many of his traits from myself and my father. They just happen to be a bit more exagerated in him (either due to his current age, the fact he has other conditions contributing to it or something else). My mother has no autoimmune conditions at all (in fact my mother is the only member of her family that doesn't have asthma or allergies), I have asthma and allergies. None of my other cousins are even remotely near the behaviors myself and my son have shown. Further, my youngest son is completely different (I had PE with him as well). He's an extravert while myself and my oldest are introverts.

The genetics part plays a crucial role (again imo). Identical twins have between a 75-98% chance of having autism (if one identical twin does have it).

As for rates or increase in diagnosis, I look at 2 things and are very skeptical about the reliance on these increase. First, autism is more well known even in the 80's then before that. An increase in diagnosis may simply be not because it is occuring more often but because its being diagnosed more often. I was a child in the 1980's and my behaviors would have NEVER (and didn't) warrent any investigation. I was simply defined as odd in the cute child sort of way. Today, those same behaviors in my son have people screaming autism.

Second, I do worry (based on my own expereinces) about the actual diagnosis being made and where they are getting the numbers from. It is pretty well known that not all doctors giving the diagnosis go by the DSM-IV. They instead go off gut feeling or how they think an autstic child looks. Which is why the developmental Ped who tried to give my son a PDD-NOS diagnosis could not explain how he met the DSM-IV or even give examples of things like non-functional ritualistic behavior or self stimulating behavior, or even severe social deficits (especially since the entire visit my son spent the whole time trying to engage the doctor into playing with him!). I have also seen some evidence that the numbers the CDC collects do not stem from medical diagnosis but rather stem from collecting evidence from the school systems on the number of children catagorized as Educational Autism (my son has an educational autism diagnosis for his IEP and the criteria for that is not even close to the medical diagnosis), which does not require the child to have or even meet the medical diagnosis for autism.

Its these things that always make me look at the numbers and facts with a grain of salt. I had a patch of psorasis as a teenager. It lasted a whole 2-3 months and was actually brought on by stress (though I have been WAY more stressed at other times in my life and it didn't occur so there probably was a hormone issue in there as well). My husband does have psorasis that has developed as he's gotten older and my oldest son has a form of eczema on the back of his arms.

Oh, s---. My 15-y.o. daughter has what looks like mild psoriasis (exczema?) just developing on her face and bad on her knees for a long time. I'm worried about PCOS developing because she is overweight in the upper body and can't lose it, has irregular periods. I couldn't get her doctor to test her for insulin resistance, though she tested her for all sorts of other things (funny how doctors focus on their own pet theories). Doctor thought scaly knees were warts. Dd has a brother and had a great-grandfather with Aspergers. How many strikes does this kid have going against her when she gets pregnant, for PE and autism spectrum disorders? When the new insurance kicks in, I'm taking her right to a dermatologist, and an endocrinologist if I can't get her doctor to do the insulin resistance testing.

Caryn, I had wondered about maternal immune problems contributing to autism - it crossed my mind to wonder if there could be a link to maternal vaccination history - the autism surge in the eighties could be linked to the mothers who were getting vaccinated in the fifties and sixties for much more than their mothers were. I dismissed it, not easy to see a possible mechanism - but now you bring up psoriasis...

I still hold to the "when two nerds mate" theory - with environmental influence on genetic vulnerability. High maternal androgen levels are linked to both PE and autism. I wonder what my own androgen levels are - I've got a "male" pattern intelligence and big strong bones- but the emotions and what's on the bones are female.

I am completely winging it but is there any chance you have psoriasis?

IIRC new-onset psoriasis during pregnancy is associated with a doubling of risk for autism; it is also an autoimmune disease and those are associated with PE. I know we have several posters here with psoriasis who had severe PE or HELLP.

There are also some new studies out looking at gene expression in preeclamptic placentae and at least a few of them have pointed at genes related to rate of cell turnover... again psoriasis.

I have had a strong belief for quite some time that there is a correlation between the two, if you had HELLP and have a child with Autism, please email me,I had Pre Ecl and Hellp and both my sons are Autistic, although the second one I didnt have Pre Ecl or Hellp with him. Please email me, I plan to have a study conducted I Hope if I can gather enough info.